Corpus Christi

 There I was!

Sitting in a little French kitchen,

On a small wooden chair

Sipping a glass of coke with my elbows on a red checkered plastic tablecloth. 

Thousands of miles from home and family and friends. 

I had already spent 5 days listening to French and not understanding a single word of it. 

I had just gotten back from the grotto at Lourdes. 

And as I watched all types of people young and old,

In wheelchairs, on crutches and laying on stretchers;

And others carrying gallons of Lourdes Water in each hand walk by,

While others were kneeling to pray or standing in line to touch the stone of the grotto,

I looked up at the night sky

And the steeples of the basilica,

Marveling on why Our Lady brought me here. 

Wondering what Lourdes would look like in 40 yrs;

Knowing that I would probably not be around in 40yrs to see. 

And in the quiet of the moment,

All alone in a foreign land.....

I began to reminisce on my life. 

It is so hard to do at home,

Because the treadmill of life is moving so fast

That one does not have the time to reflect and reminisce 

Or else one might fall off that treadmill!

And so Lourdes slowed me down. 

There were no family or friends. 

I slept in a strange bed,

Ate strange food;

And listened to a strange language. 

There was no TV or radio

No junk food in the kitchen

The only familiar things I had was what fit in my suitcase.....

A few clothes and some Neil Diamond and John Denver CDs. 

It was in this strangeness and nothingness,

That God began to speak to me. 

We often wonder why God does speak to us. 

Oftentimes it is because our lives are too busy and too crowded to hear Him. 

So as I sat in that little French kitchen,

I reflected on this Gospel passage. 

A passage that I had heard a hundred times and had to preach on half as many times. 

And I began to see what Jesus was trying to say. 

For the Pharisees the Law was Life. 

Following every dot and dash of it. 

This was life for them. 

For the Zealots,

Life was overthrowing the Romans. 

Killing as many as possible. 

Driving them from their land. 

This was life for them. 

For the tax collectors,

It was money. 

Taxing the rich and the poor. 

Anyone they could,

For as much as they could. 

That was life for them. 

And the Prostitutes?

Selling themselves to anyone who came along.

That was life for them. 

And Jesus looked at these people. 

He looked at their lives and what they were living for and He said. 

I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE!

whoever eats the Bread that I give them will have life......

REAL LIFE. 

For My Flesh is Real Food and My Blood is Real Drink. 

And whoever eats My Body and drinks My Blood will live forever. 

We know what life was like for the Pharisees and Zealots, and tax collectors and prostitutes. 

What is life for us?

Work,work,work?

Television and junk food?

Loneliness and bitterness?

Broken homes and broken hearts?

Chasing the latest sales and hottest fashions?

There is only one place to find REAL LIFE. 

And that is in the Eucharist.....

The Bread of Life!

Everything else takes life;

Somethings faster than others.....

But they take it just the same. 

And Jesus looks at each one of us. 

At the lives we are living, 

and the deaths we are dying;

And the tears we are crying. 

And He says,

I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE!